Attn: SecDef Hegseth - This gives new meaning to "Watch the Water"
(www.okinawatimes.co.jp)
Comments (6)
sorted by:
This article from 2023 recently caught my eye. "Emails obtained from the US Marine Corps via the US Freedom of Information Act catalog a string of accidents and careless operating procedures involving PFAS-firefighting foam at MCAS Futenma, Kadena Air Base, and Camp Hansen. Notably, the USMC was experiencing so many spills in 2019, that a senior Marine described them as “a trend”; meanwhile, in an outdoor pond at Kadena Air Base, the US Air Force was storing 76,000 liters of water contaminated with PFAS at up to 50,000 ng/L – 1000-times Japanese environmental guidelines."
Award-winning investigative journalist Jon Mitchell has been sounding the alarm for years in the Japan and Okinawa media outlets. He also authored a book titled "Poisoning the Pacific" and worked on two documentary videos about this very subject.
I'm no tree-hugger or foreign policy expert but this is concerning as it's been going on for decades. A little more digging has led me to believe that our DoD needs to re-negotiate our SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) with our allies in the Pacific theater if we expect them to cooperate with us as China eyes Taiwan... before it's too late to shore up any goodwill that remains. We should do a better job of looking out for our vets... the DoD isn't doing it.
Full disclosure: Jon Mitchell and I have become long-distance friends via email since late last year. I respect his dogged determination, yet his work receives very little coverage here in the States.
Excellent contribution to our board.
Thanks, Fren. Sometimes this stuff gets buried in the avalanche of CONUS news.
Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but aren't EV fires put out with the same foam? All of it ends up in storm drains or absorbed by the soil. Airplane fires are also extinguished with the same stuff. Where does it go? I don't ever hear anyone talking about this time bomb.
The US military is by far one of the biggest polluters on the planet and they care little about their personnel or the public that are exposed. I had lots of patients at the VA who were suffering from exposures that the government took no responsibility for until forced to do so by the courts. Sadly, the VA's strategy was to fight a claim calculating that the patient would either die or give up before receiving benefits.
Do a bit of digging on "Operation Red Hat". The hubris of the DoD is on full display with this memo :
“There are no international agreements governing the storage or disposal of RED HAT stocks as Okinawa is under the legal and governmental jurisdiction of the U.S. by treaty with Japan. Use of RED HAT stocks is governed by the Geneva Protocol of 1925… The final instrument was signed by the U.S. but never ratified by the Senate. Hence, the U.S. is not legally bound to adhere to the Geneva Protocol relating to use of RED HAT.”
That was a memo from the Army's Chief of Staff after an "incident" in which chemical weapons were exposed to "low levels" of deadly sarin gas in the late 60's. The DoD pretty much just gave the Japanese the big middle finger, IMHO.
Thanks for the heads up. I had not heard of this one. There are so many. So blatant and in your face. No accountability. Working on the front lines at the VA with those suffering from the hubris you speak of was eye opening and terribly sad. So many lives shattered and ruined with little to no recourse.